Bruce Elliott is a specialist in 18th and 19th century social and immigration history, in local and community history (both as a discipline and in the specific contexts of eastern Ontario and western Quebec), and in material culture, public history and heritage studies. He currently teaches courses on Ottawa neighbourhoods, gravestones and cemeteries, and 19th century immigration, amongst other things. He was the department’s graduate chair for seven years, and was one of the founders of its MA in Public History, in which he remains active as a teacher and supervisor. Bruce has published on Irish and English immigration to Canada; his Irish Migrants in the Canadas won several awards and remains in print in its second edition. In 2003 he hosted the first international conference on emigrant letters which resulted in an edited collection of analytical papers, Letters Across Borders: The Epistolary Practices of International Migrants, co-edited with David Gerber and Suzanne Sinke. His current research is on the North American monument industry, particularly its transition from craft to industry. He has published articles on the American Civil War headstone program and on gravestones of free persons of colour in Bermuda.

Bruce is active in the local heritage community in an advisory capacity to local government, and is involved with Pinhey’s Point and Fairfields historic sites. He was the former City of Nepean’s historian from 1986 to 1990 and the author of The City Beyond: A History of Nepean, Birthplace of Canada’s Capital, 1792-1990 (1991). His publications have received awards from the American Association for State and Local History, Canadian Historical Association, Ontario Historical Society, and Champlain Society, and his activities in heritage have been recognized by awards from the Ontario Heritage Trust, Ontario Genealogical Society, British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa, Institut d’histoire et de recherche sur l’outaouais, and by the award of a Nepean 2000 Millennium Medal.

Supervisory areas

18th-19th century Canadian social history

Immigration from 1760 to 1875

Local and community history

History of Ottawa, eastern Ontario and western Quebec

Gravestones, cemeteries and memorialization

Rural history

Research Interests

Gravestones and cemeteries; the North American monument industry; gravestones and gravestone carvers of Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia; gravestones, cemeteries and monuments of Bermuda; the American Civil War headstone program

The heritage movement in Ottawa; Ottawa urban history

Social, economic, and political history of March Township, Ontario

English and Irish emigration to British North America before Confederation

Emigrant letters

Honours and Awards

2013 Nepean Museum Wall of Fame

2013 Honorary Patron Member (honorary life membership), National Museum of Bermuda, “in recognition of … significant contributions to the Museum”

2005 Inducted into British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa’s “Hall of Fame”, for “long and varied contributions to the Society and to the field of genealogy”

2004 Ontario Heritage Foundation Community Recognition Program 2004 – on nomination by City of Ottawa in the area of Cultural Heritage

2000 Nepean 2000 Millennium Medal, in recognition of years of research, advice, and consultative work with the City of Nepean concerning the City’s past

2000 Award of Merit from Ontario Genealogical Society to the Association for the Preservation of Ontario Land Registry Office Documents (APOLROD), of which a founding director

1993 Fred Landon Award, Ontario Historical Society, for the best book on Ontario local or regional history (The City Beyond)

1992 Certificate of Commendation, American Association for State and Local History

1992 Honorary life membership, Ontario Genealogical Society

1990 Joseph Brant Award for the best book on Ontario’s multicultural heritage from the Ontario Historical Society (Irish Migrants in the Canadas)

1989 Floyd Chalmers Prize of the Champlain Society for the best work on the history of Ontario published in 1988 (Irish Migrants in the Canadas)

“Records of Labourers, Squatters, and Tenants on the Rideau Canal” in Katherine M. McKenna, ed., Labourers on the Rideau Canal, 1826-1832: From Work Site to World Heritage Site (Ottawa: Borealis Press, 2008), 97-129

Letters Across Borders: The Epistolary Practices of International Migrants (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006) (ed. with David Gerber and Suzanne Sinke)